Mom's High School Haiku
The '80s high rise.
February 19th, 2024
There's nothing I love more than an experience that can transport you to another place, or better yet, another time. My nostalgia more often takes the form of nostalgia for times I've never experienced, times whose eras and auras I've gleaned from movies, songs, books, and my favorite, my mom's descriptions of her childhood. In the summer of 2021, I found her stash of mementos in a sun-faded Fila shoebox, from which I dug out a hand-bound booklet titled "Na Lau'oli" ("Singing Leaves").
In the April of 1985, Mr. Braida of Roosevelt High School in Honolulu, Hawaii collected with care the haikus of his fourth period junior year English class into appropriately leaf-sized booklets and handed them out to each one of his students whose tentative prose was cherished inside. 36 years later, one of these booklets would still remain in a student's possession, my mom's, and be discovered by me, her daughter, as a high school junior. Leafing through the pages, I found my mom's haiku on one of the first pages:
No poetry critic, I tried my best to see this poem from her point of view. "Her" being my 16-year-old mom who had written this haiku, laboriously re-penciling and re-erasing to get every syllable right, rushing to get her homework done after school so she and her siblings could go play at their favorite arcade on the top floor of a Waikiki hotel. I thought of the gleaming skyscraper she was picturing (maybe the hotel), the Hawaiian summer nights, and of the world that was hers. The siblings crowding around to watch MTV on a Friday night staring at neon lights flash across the screen, Pacman and pinball, the Bananarama "Cruel Summer" music video, and in the mainland cities too, the Madonna-wannabes strutting alongside the Gordon-Gekko-lookalikes: the upwards-gazing 80s dreamers with stars in their eyes.
On that day, I made my first era-specific playlist and found the perfect playlist cover on Pinterest to match:
Darold D. Braida passed in 2015 at 86. After Googling him (I know), I found his obituary truly touching. Was my mom a "throw away kid"?
There she is in the front row, third from the left!
8/17/24 UPDATE:
On our trip to Hawaii last week, we drove through Kaimuki, my mom and her five siblings' first neighborhood in Oahu, and checked out Liholiho Elementary School 44 years later. This is the tree that picture was taken under!
And here's the building in Waikiki whose top floor held their arcade. Maybe it wasn't a hotel, after all.
1/14/26 UPDATE:
First blog update/post of 2026, what a way to usher in the new year on Blog.phia.
I just saw recent GG-winner Marty Supreme, and though it was set in the 1950s, the soundtrack totally got me hyped about the '80s again. I have yet to choose my "favorite decade" to vibe to, but it's definitely between the '80s and '60s (alternatively, consider meeting in the middle with the B-52's). Anyways, with Tears For Fears being heavily featured in the soundtrack, I was reminded of this vibe, and I committed myself to updating this post mid-"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" credits.
Early this winter break, my mom and I took a #girlsTrip to Waikiki. This time around, we got to spend time with my mom's childhood flute and ESL teacher Aileen Kawakami in Kaimuki and it really was yet another trip down memory lane. She had "In My Life" bookmarked in her Beatles fake book and we played it together on her piano. Am I the one curating these vibes? Or is it fate?
I might've snuck a pic. This is what happens when you don't have Instagram. Is this blog my Instagram? I do prefer this format. 🤓
Look at what I saw when we made our way through arrivals at the airport: the Wiki-Wiki airport shuttle! I immediately snapped this picture for my blog, of course. Why? This is where our beloved wikis got their name. I first learned about this from the wiki wiki a while back, and I was delighted to see a Hawaii feature. I'm going to make you wiki this yourself (I'm trying to make "hypertext" and "wiki" as verbs happen, help me out?). The picture:
We didn't take one of these, but my mom is a proponent of "Da Bus". When her family first arrived in Hawaii, the bus driver had to identify the nickel for them.
I apologize, but I'm going to make this update about AE EYE 👁️ again. In an era where we increasingly refuse to read the full-length original sources now with the convenience of AE EYE 👁️ summaries, I've been trying to spread the #gospel (I also saw Sinners, I'm trying to keep my mind off of grad school admissions, okay) of the joy of hypertext among my Gen-Z friends. Sometimes a little bit of extra work is well worth it... serendipitous discovery and all that, you know?
WAIT!!! That reminds me, I also got a Sony Walkman for Christmas. I love you, Catherine Bao. My mom was excited to mess with it too because she's always talking about the red Sony Walkman she used to have and how she used to record her own mixtapes (translation: playlists) off of the radio. Imagine waiting for the specific song you want to add to your mixtape and whipping out your Walkman to record it onto a tape. Effort... interesting.
It WORKS! But I'm struggling to take the casette out. Again, worth the effort because of Catherine Bao... and '80s vibe. '80s vibeee.
We also went rollerskating when I visited Catherine in her own hometown of Orem, Utah (Mormons love a good roller rink, who knew? Good family fun, I guess). She's a prodigy on the inline skates. I pulled up in my freshly thrifted '80s sweater, but was quickly defeated as soon as someone skated into me at full speed. Catherine, Anoushka, and I had a real boogie oogie oogie though. My mom is also a proponent of her childhood rink called "Da Rink" in Waikiki. "Da Bus"... "Da Rink"... what's up with that? Perhaps this winter break was an '80s vibe all the way to the end!
I am including this picture of myself at the Orem "Classic Skating & Fun Center" because I am kind of obsessed with this sweater. So '80s. The "Fun Center" is a slice of the '80s. We had a Mormon NYE! You can't tell here but my butt was incredibly sore.
This update was longer than anticipated and reads more like a journal entry. If you're reading this, thank you. I'm going to put in my AirPods and play one of my '80s playlists now. Whoops, it's just easier...
There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends, I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I've loved them all